The Aftermath

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1. Aftermath When the summer fields are mown, When the birds are fledged and flown, And the dry leaves strew the path; With the falling of the snow, With the cawing of the crow, Once again the fields we mow And gather in the aftermath. Not the sweet, new grass with flowers Is this harvesting of ours; […]...
2. Peace When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs? When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows Alarms of wars, the […]...
3. Little Brother Wars have been and wars will be Till the human race is run; Battles red by land and sea, Never peace beneath the sun. I am old and little care; I’ll be cold, my lips be dumb: Brother mine, beware, beware. . . Evil looms the wrath to come. Eastern skies are dark with strife, […]...
4. Aftermath Have you forgotten yet?… For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways: And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go, Taking your peaceful […]...
5. Spanish Peasant We have no aspiration vain For paradise Utopian, And here in our sun-happy Spain, Though man exploit his fellow man, To high constraint we humbly yield, And turn from politics to toil, Content to till a kindly field And bring forth bounty from the soil. They tell us wars will never cease; They sy the […]...
6. The Lion The Lion is a kingly beast. He likes a Hindu for a feast. And if no Hindu he can get, The lion-family is upset. He cuffs his wife and bites her ears Till she is nearly moved to tears. Then some explorer finds the den And all is family peace again....
7. Michael “There’s something in your face, Michael, I’ve seen it all the day; There’s something quare that wasn’t there when first ye wint away. . . .” “It’s just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right, That puts the stiffinin’ in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . .” “There’s […]...
8. To Seem The Stranger Lies My Lot, My Life To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life Among strangers. Father and mother dear, Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near And he my peace my parting, sword and strife. England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife To my creating thought, would neither hear Me, were I pleading, plead nor do […]...
9. Aftermath I learnt to write to you in happier days, And every letter was a piece I chipped From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays, Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise. To make a pavement for your feet I stripped My soul for […]...
10. Oh, It Is Good Oh, it is good to drink and sup, And then beside the kindly fire To smoke and heap the faggots up, And rest and dream to heart’s desire. Oh, it is good to ride and run, To roam the greenwood wild and free; To hunt, to idle in the sun, To leap into the laughing […]...
11. Epitaph No matter how he toil and strive The fate of every man alive With luck will be to lie alone, His empty name cut in a stone. Grim time the fairest fame will flout, But though his name be blotted out, And he forgotten with his peers, His stone may wear a year of years. […]...
12. I'll have to change my mind I’ll have to change my mind on war, I need to take a break From structured thought; there’s more to peace – it dictates A longer oar to keep the calm than takes to make a little war. Our history as a people is a theatre of strife and where We celebrate the life of […]...
13. Our Daily Bread “Give me my daily bread. It seems so odd, When all is done and said, This plea to God. To pray for cake might be The thing to do; But bread, it seems to me, Is just our due. “Give me my daily toil,” I ought to say – (If from life’s cursed coil I’d […]...
14. Circe's Torment I regret bitterly The years of loving you in both Your presence and absence, regret The law, the vocation That forbid me to keep you, the sea A sheet of glass, the sun-bleached Beauty of the Greek ships: how Could I have power if I had no wish To transform you: as You loved my […]...
15. Wars IN the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet. In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires. In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not Yet dreamed out in the heads of men. In the old wars clutches of short swords and […]...
16. Gunner Did they send me away from my cat and my wife To a doctor who poked me and counted my teeth, To a line on a plain, to a stove in a tent? Did I nod in the flies of the schools? And the fighters rolled into the tracer like rabbits, The blood froze over […]...
17. The Monster When we might make with happy heart This world a paradise, With bombs we blast brave men apart, With napalm carbonize. Where we might till the sunny soil, And sing for joy of life, We spend our treasure and our toil In bloody strife. The fields of wheat are sheening gold, The flocks have silver […]...
18. So Many Blood-Lakes We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were Slipped in. We have levelled the powers Of Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and Dependence. We have won two wars and a third is comming. This one will not be so easy. We were at ease while […]...
19. The Ordinary Man If you and I should chance to meet, I guess you wouldn’t care; I’m sure you’d pass me in the street As if I wasn’t there; You’d never look me in the face, My modest mug to scan, Because I’m just a commonplace And Ordinary Man. But then, it may be, you are too A […]...
20. Decorations My only medals are the scars I’ve won in weary, peacetime wars, A-fighting for my little brood, To win them shelter, shoon and food; But most of all to give them faith In God’s good mercy unto death. My sons have medals gleaming bright, Proud trophies won in foreign fight; But though their crosses bravely […]...
21. 511. Song-O aye my wife she dang me Chorus-O aye my wife she dang me, An’ aft my wife she bang’d me, If ye gie a woman a’ her will, Gude faith! she’ll soon o’er-gang ye. ON peace an’ rest my mind was bent, And, fool I was! I married; But never honest man’s intent Sane cursedly miscarried. O aye my wife, &c. […]...
22. Jubal and Tubal Cain Canadian Jubal sang of the Wrath of God And the curse of thistle and thorn But Tubal got him a pointed rod, And scrabbled the earth for corn. Old old as that early mould, Young as the sprouting grain Yearly green is the strife between Jubal and Tubal Cain! Jubal sang of the new-found sea, […]...
23. A Song of Defeat The line breaks and the guns go under, The lords and the lackeys ride the plain; I draw deep breaths of the dawn and thunder, And the whole of my heart grows young again. For our chiefs said ‘Done,’ and I did not deem it; Our seers said ‘Peace,’ and it was not peace; Earth […]...
24. Sonnet LVII SWeet warriour when shall I haue peace with you? High time it is, this warre now ended were: Which I no lenger can endure to sue, Ne your incessant battry more to beare: So weake my powres, so sore my wounds appeare, That wonder is how I should liue a iot, Seeing my hart through […]...
25. The Dauber In stilly grove beside the sea He mingles colours, measures space; A bronze and breezy man is he, Yet peace is in his face. Behold him stand and longly stare, Till deft of hand and deep of eye He captures on a canvas square The joy of earth and sky. Aloof from servitude and strife, […]...
26. The Death Of Santa Claus He’s had the chest pains for weeks, But doctors don’t make house Calls to the North Pole, He’s let his Blue Cross lapse, Blood tests make him faint, Hospital gown always flap Open, waiting rooms upset His stomach, and it’s only Indigestion anyway, he thinks, Until, feeding the reindeer, He feels as if a monster […]...
27. Turn, O Libertad TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over, (From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute, sweeping the world,) Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past; From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past; From the chants of the feudal world-the triumphs of kings, slavery, caste; Turn to […]...
28. Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget,” Dove-white on her car’s window, and the wren, Because her heart is tender, might regret It called the sun to wake her. As I slept, She heard lost names recounted, one by one. She wrote in sidewalk chalk: “Never Forget,” And kept her heart’s own counsel. No […]...
29. 304. Song-I Murder hate I MURDER hate by flood or field, Tho’ glory’s name may screen us; In wars at home I’ll spend my blood- Life-giving wars of Venus. The deities that I adore Are social Peace and Plenty; I’m better pleas’d to make one more, Than be the death of twenty. I would not die like Socrates, For […]...
30. On Being Challenged to Write an Epigram in the Manner of Herrick To Griggs, that learned man, in many a bygone session, His kids were his delight, and physics his profession; Now Griggs, grown old and glum, and less intent on knowledge, Physics himself at home, and sends his kids to college....
31. April 21 I’m a very average person, And I think most people are. I vote with the common man. I have two kids, a boy and a girl. Last Sunday I played golf with the boss. Hey, it beats working. I’m his wife. I may be brainless but I’m her husband. I played golf with her Last […]...
32. Lobster For Lunch His face was like a lobster red, His legs were white as mayonnaise: “I’ve had a jolly lunch,” he said, That Englishman of pleasant ways. “Thy do us well at our hotel: In England food is dull these days.” “We had a big langouste for lunch. I almost ate the whole of it. And now […]...
33. Sonnet 10 I have sought Happiness, but it has been A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit, And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit More fair of outward hue than sweet within. Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil, There only, chastened by fatigue and toil, I knew what came […]...
34. Soldier, Soldier “Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Why don’t you march with my true love?” “We’re fresh from off the ship an’ ‘e’s maybe give the slip, An’ you’d best go look for a new love.” New love! True love! Best go look for a new love, The dead they cannot rise, an’ you’d better dry […]...
35. Brave New World One spoke: “Come, let us gaily go With laughter, love and lust, Since in a century or so We’ll all be boneyard dust. When unborn shadows hold the screen, (Our betters, I’ll allow) ‘Twill be as if we’d never been, A hundred years from now. When we have played life’s lively game Right royally we’ll […]...
36. Mag I WISH to God I never saw you, Mag. I wish you never quit your job and came along with me. I wish we never bought a license and a white dress For you to get married in the day we ran off to a minister And told him we would love each other and […]...
37. Voluntary HERE in the quiet eve My thankful eyes receive The quiet light. I see the trees stand fair Against the faded air, And star by star prepare The perfect night. And in my bosom, lo! Content and quiet grow Toward perfect peace. And now when day is done, Brief day of wind and sun, The […]...
38. I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone The dogs greet me, I descend Into their world of fur and tongues And then my wife and I embrace As if we’d just closed the door In a motel, our two girls slip in Between us and we’re all saying Each other’s names and the dogs Buster and Sundown are on their hind legs, […]...
39. Five-Per-Cent Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern, And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn. For in some procreative way that isn’t very clear, Ten thousand pounds will breed, they say, five hundred every year. So as I have a healthy hate of economic strife, I mean to stand […]...
40. The Tunnel Toil’s a tunnel, there’s no way out For fellows, the like o’ me; A beggar wi’ only a crust an’ a clout At the worst o’ the worst is free; But I work to eat, an’ I eat to work; It’s always the same old round, And I dassent fail for the day I shirk […]...